An anti-war voice has fallen silent, for Mary Travers, a founding member of Peter, Paul and Mary, was felled by cancer today. The singer, whose sullen folksy sound many of you will remember from "Blowin' in the Wind," was 72.

Yet again the nation's embroiled in a race debate. That's not surprising. There was that black-on-white violence that Drudge enjoyed so much. And then silly Jimmy Carter called "racism" on Obama's health care opponents. The only people not talking race?

Hey, wanna kill time before tonight's live blog starts? Try rating cheftestant tattoos! Bravo's posted some 50 pics of them, which you can score on a five-star scale (and for once, Ashley's actually winning something!).

You'll find a recap of the last 24 hours or so of Fashion Week after the jump.

Jessica Simpson loved her probably-eaten dog like a child; Kirstie Alley is spending money buying imaginary things and Wolf Blitzer posted a celebrity photo to his new Twitter account. The Twitterati let their emotions guide them.

Politico's Ben Smith almost WON THE DAY with nice little scoop—the video of Barack Obama calling Kanye West a "jackass" during pre-interview banter with CNBC's John Harwood. But someone made him take it down. Why in the world?

[Our Nerd President brandishes a lightsaber after a fencing demonstration on the White House lawn today during a photo op to promote Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympic Games. (Bonus, green-screen-challenge-ready shot after the jump.) Image via Getty]

Trendy flack Mark Penn promised the WSJ that his evil PR firm would stop using his newspaper column as a tool to troll for PR clients. Instead, he's just writing columns off of surveys by his own polling firm!

One of the gigantic comic character actors of modern times, Henry Gibson, died today at age 73 after battling cancer.

reacting during a Good Morning America report about whether Barack Obama is overexposed after Jake Tapper suggested the White House "would be happy to deny all of ABC News' interview requests for the president," via TVNewser.

• This week's reviews: Pete Wells of the Times slaps Michael Psilakis' Gus & Gabriel Gastropub with a zero-star review today ("The problem is that it fails to achieve even its low aims"); The New Yorker's Leo Carey comes to an entirely different conclusion; Bloomberg's Ryan Sutton hits Williamsburg to pay a visit to Brooklyn Bowl (with food by Blue Ribbon) and the Brooklyn Star; TONY's Jay Cheshes gives a "generic" Civetta two stars out of five; and NY's Adam Platt finds that "most things deliver" on Dan Silverman's menu at the Standard Grill.
• The Post's Steve Cuozzo is sick and tired of "menu sprawl," the practice of giving diners 478 things to choose from. Steve likes to keep it simple. [NYP]
• A Q&A with Andrew Carmellini, chef and co-owner of Locanda Verde. [RG]
• NYC International Pickle Day is October 4th! Mark your calendar. [GS]
• Renee Zellweger and Jon Bon Jovi co-own a Mexican restaurant (East Hampton's Blue Parrot). With Jen Aniston now saying she would like to open a Mexican spot in Manhattan, that makes three, so it's officially a trend. [Eater]

It should be a happy day for Mike Arrington and Jason Calacanis. The tech nabobs just wrapped their latest TechCrunch 50 conference, which captivated venture capitalists and the press. But the moguls are locked in Northern California-Southern California civil war.

The Way We Live Now: Making the hard choices. Maserati or Benzo? Expensive Yankees tickets or very expensive Yankees tickets? Hamburger or the whole cow? Macaroni or less macaroni for the same price?

Do you remember Citigroup's "Live Richly" ad campaign from a few years ago? The bank spent more than $100 million plastering American cities with various cheeky sayings from 2001 to 2005. When the campaign was first introduced, it was during the mini-recession of 2001, and since Citi's existence wasn't threatened during that particular downturn, the bank managed to find some humor in the fact many Americans had lost their jobs or weren't earning as much as they had in the past. If you look back at them now, though, you'll see that they contain lots of useful advice for the 53,000 people who have been laid off by the bank over the past year ("Make ends meet. Bend down and touch your toes"), as well as the Citi employees who have managed to hang on, but who won't be collecting fat bonuses now that the federal government owns a third of the bank ("Go on a spending diet, but don't forget to sneak a little dessert"). Click here to experience the irony in all its embarrassing glory.

Once upon a time the John Varvatos store reeked of rat poison, sweaty skinheads and Iggy Pop's low-hanging balls. But last night, the scent was decidedly sweeter for me, because I totally partied on a tour bus with Perry Farrell.

Remember when sci-fi movies were about blowing up aliens and attacking Godzilla? Those days are gone, my friend. Thanks to Battlestar Galactica and District 9, the genre now exists to please the intelligentsia. The latest victim, the Star Trek sequel.

[Tinsley Mortimer drives designer Betsy Johnson to drink last night after her fashion show. Image via Getty]

Your sneers mean nothing: Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol has already sold 1 million copies.

The New York Daily News says the FBI fears a "Madrid-style" subway bombing in New York, and the man reported to be the mastermind will hold a press conference today. For better or worse, this is what we voted for.

Muntader got off easy. US forces killed an Iraqi man today for throwing a shoe at them. AFP headline: "Iraqi 'shoe-thrower' shot dead by US forces." Not that Iraqi shoe thrower, though. Editors. Sheesh. Anyhow, throw shoes and die. [Breitbart]